Ash
by Estoma
Summary: Buttercup mourns a friend. Cover image by AprilLittle.


**Author's note: For Cooper, and also for Caesar's Palace prompt challenge, prompt: Grey. **

Ash makes a thick blanket over the ruins of District 12. Where buildings once stood to tower over your head, there are now heaps of smoldering rubble. The heat emanating from them is still enough o make you give them a wide berth, even two days after the fires stopped.

District 12 was always drab. The coal dust seeped into the cracks in buildings and between the cobblestones in the square. It mixed with the dirt of the unpaved streets. Citizen found it caked under their nails and embedded in their frown lines, even those who didn't work the mines. Everyone breathed it in their lungs were as stained as their skin. When they coughed, there was coal dust in their bloody phlegm.

Above, the sky is grey to match the bleak landscape. There used to be the odd tree or bright shop-front to break the monotony, but now all is grey. Even the gnarled old apple tree in the baker's yard is just a stump.

What you notice most though is the lack of sound. You're used to seeing the world devoid of color but you're not used to the silence. As you pad through the empty square, even your footfalls are muffled, though they raise little clouds of ash. There isn't even the sound of a bird.

You remember the square when it was filled with noisy humans. They haggled and passed coins back and forth and argued. Small children dashed hither and thither, and you had to keep to the alleys if you wanted to avoid being the target of swift kicks and flung stones. There used to be bins to raid in those alleys, but now even the bins are melted lumps of metal, and covered in ash.

The square should have been filled with smells too. On a hot day, the refuse in the alleys would steam and fill the air with the smell of rotten cabbage, entrails and mold. There's nothing to smell now except smoke. Occasionally, you catch a whiff of meat left too long in the oven but it's buried under the ash and you don't look because you have somewhere to go.

At the southern exit to the square, the ash is thinner, but something blocks your way. It's a black, charred something with the suggestion of limbs drawn up to the chest, and one arm flung up over the face. You stop and sniff at the thing, but there's no meat for you; it's all charcoal now.

Leaving the square behind, you keep your ears pricked for a single sound. Some of the buildings stand yet, but many of those are unstable. Your light footfalls, always quiet, don't make the vibrations needed to topple them, but you're still careful, muscles tensed.

For a moment, you're lost. The familiar smells are gone, and all the shapes are wrong too. But you haven't made a wrong turn. The house does not stand anymore, at least not all of it. There's two and a half walls and just a sliver of roof. The doorway is a gaping, dark hole. You don't go near it.

If you close your eyes, you can remember what it should be like. There's the sweet young human, and there's her warm bed. Her grouchy older sister sits at the table, but the smell of entrails from the carcass on the chopping board is promising. Prim always smelt warm and fresh. A light aroma of herbs clung to her, and salty cheese. There were always a few of your light, ginger hairs clinging to her dress, and more on her bed. She didn't seem to mind and you purred when you saw that you'd marked her. Your own smell lingered too.

All that is burnt away now. Still, you prowl around the remaining walls, wary incase they topple. On the south wall there's an iron ring set into the wood and a few links of chain. The smell of burnt meat is even stronger and you remember.

It seemed nothing was amiss until you felt a low rumble through your paws. And then the sky was clouded over by black shapes that weren't clouds. They cast dark shadows down on the house and the little yard behind it with the scrap of grass.

You knew what fire was; you curled by it in the winter, and through most of the cold spring and autumn too, but you didn't know fire like this. It rained down. Buildings that were solid and strong one moment turned to burning pieces in a heartbeat. The oldest human burst from the house, her hands still covered in flour to the elbows. She fled and you nearly did too.

You ran, paws finding grip on the dirt street until _she _called you. You had to go back. There was a leather collar around Lady's neck, and a chain tied to her to the iron ring in the wall. She strained at it, dainty little hooves digging into the dirt for purchase, and you both screamed for the little girl who cared for you both.

No help came. People ran past, some carrying treasured possessions like cuckoo clocks and battered silver plates, and some clutching small children. Even those whose arms were empty did not stop their headlong rush. And the fire began to spread.

You yowled your encouragement, but the collar held fast and the fire continued to fall. Something landed on the house next door and the ground rocked beneath your paws. Lady lost her footing and the smell of smoke was strong in the air. Your muscles were tensed to spring away as instinct fought your conscious mind.

She told you to go, at least, you tell yourself that. When fire caught the wall of your house, and the heat was more than you could stand, she told you to run. It was the advantage instinct needed to take over your body and sweep away your objections in a tide of adrenaline. You touched her nose with yours and felt her soft, white fur before you ran.

Dodging the fire that spread so quickly through the coal imbued houses, your ears were deafened by the roar and the rumbles. Sometimes, you had to leap a smoking crater and you trusted yourself to land on the other side. You could hardly hear your own ragged breathing, but you still heard _her._ Her final goodbye turned to a scream of pain and then you lost it in a final roar of flames.

And you just ran.

As you come back from the memory, you shake yourself to clear your head. It doesn't fade though. It resonates with an intensity that makes your tail hang limp and your whiskers droop and you look at the pile of ash and charred bones near the iron ring. Maybe your bones should be there too.

Ash rises in a little cloud when you lie down there. It slowly settles back down and coats your bright fur a drab shade. For once you ignore it. You're grey like a ghost and maybe it fits.

Closing your eyes, you try to remember those cold nights when you'd leave the warm house to keep Lady company, lying side by side. You'd snuggle close to her warm flank and she'd duck her chin down to rest on your fur. When you purred, it resonated through both of you.

That's what you try to remember, but all you can see when you close your eyes is the bright flames licking over her white fur, tracing her limbs in a burning outline.

As night begins to fall, the grey landscape turns to black. You tuck your paws under yourself and fluff your fur in a pitiful attempt to starve off the cold. Lady's charred bones bring you no warmth.


End file.
